Thoughts and words

New novel - chapter 1

1 2020 – on the terrace 1 All stories start and end at some place and at some point in time. Initially, I wanted to say that the story I am about to write starts and ends on the terrace of this house in the hills outside Treviso. However, second... Read more →

Extract from a novel unfinished

Apart from founding the language school, Captain Meldrum’s legacy was this villa built on land bombed during the war and snapped up by his father when Toni was born in 1960. Built in the typical Veneto style, the villa was situated a few kilometres from the city of Treviso in... Read more →

Waiting for the Barbarians

Described by E. M. Forster as “a Greek gentleman in a straw hat, standing absolutely motionless at a slight angle to the universe." Who is this motionless man? It is the poet C.P Cavafy and here he is with a favourite poem - Waiting for the Barbarians. What are we... Read more →

Novel extract

“Yes, I know who you are,” she said and looked up at him with those large blue eyes, smiled and cocked her head towards the group of waiting dancers. “They told me…” “Told you?” “Who you are.” The need to ask her why she wanted to know was crowded out... Read more →

The Letter 2 - draft

Life as a child was endless summer all the way until that night in 1985 because “that night” marked a point of change. He was happy for a while but the events of that evening returned to haunt him and later turned his life into a cold-north-wind-infested night. They were... Read more →

Book sales - covid, covers and Christmas

Book sales (mainly paperbacks) are going through the roof. Is it because of lockdown and/or Christmas coming? Or is it because of the covers that were done earlier this year? Or could it be a combination of the three? Perhaps people even like the books. Read more →

Look back with pleasure

A lot has happened to me since Monica posed for these pics I took of her while on a kibbutz in Israel in 1971. She was my "girlfriend" at the time, and I recently dug out these photos. They helped me look back on some good times. Why did I... Read more →

The Letter - draft

“That place…I know it…” Half sleep, half words and utterances, and mouthed while Toni’s eyes flickered behind lids now closed to the perfumed darkness of the night. “Yes, that place…those people…I know them still…” And Toni woke with a start, lifted his mind from the dream and put it where... Read more →

Journey's End

"Journey's End" - read the novel adaptation of this 1928 play in the 1960s, and found this film adaptation of a group of soldiers waiting for an attack (their journey's end) very powerful and so much more powerful than "1917." Anti-war films don't get much better or more haunting. The... Read more →

Terrace in starlight

The evening breeze was no cooler than that of the daytime but now the moon was shining in a darker shade of blue, and Venus was posturing in her own sky, inviting her audience to admire and enjoy her presence along with the conjured-up memories of moments from other warm... Read more →